by LP Lovell
“Fuck you!” The guy spits through swollen lips and broken teeth. He sways slightly as his weight shifts, and the chain lets out an ominous creak as the links grind together.
Nero sighs and then inhales on his cigarette. For the first time, I notice the way his full lips purse around it, his defined jawline flexing beneath a layer of dark stubble as he draws the breath. He turns away, giving a slight jerk of his chin to Gio, who immediately leaves the room. “One of my guys was killed in your ambush,” he says, his tone completely neutral. “I know it wasn’t Huan who set it up, which means it was an inside job.” This time, the guy says nothing, and the only sound is the rasping of his breath. Sounds like a punctured lung to me. Nero shrugs. “Okay.”
I frown, and I’ll admit I’m intrigued when Gio comes back in the room carrying a metal bucket. He places it at Nero’s feet, where he leans down and takes something out of it, a bottle. Nero nods and steps back, locking eyes with his angry captive. Gio opens the bottle and pours it over the suspended man. It only takes a few seconds for the smell to hit me. Gasoline. The liquid pours over the material of his jeans, cascading down his mangled body until he’s coughing and choking, trying not to inhale it.
“What are you doing?” he asks, panicked.
Nero drops to a crouch, until he’s almost eye level with him. “Getting what I want.” He takes one final drag of the cigarette and throws it, straight at the guy’s face. The ember catches and the flames tear over his body. His screams echo around the concrete room, accompanied only by the sound of the fire blasting over his skin. I’m no stranger to violence, but that’s a nasty way to go. Gio moves and pulls something else from the bucket, but I can’t clearly see past Nero who stands calmly, watching the burning, screaming man as if he were observing a bonfire. A hissing sound fills the room, and the flames die instantly. Gio stands to the other side of the smoking body, fire extinguisher in hand. They put him out? They set him on fire and then they put it out, why? All I can smell is singed hair and burnt flesh, and the odour has me swallowing back bile.
Another bucket of water is thrown on him and again he jerks awake, only this time it must feel like he’s imprisoned in the inner circle of hell. The scream that tears from his lips would have even the hardest of men recoiling. His skin is raw and mangled, literally as though it melted in the fire. He’s completely unrecognisable, not that the round with the brass knuckles had done him many favours. Nero steps closer and stares down at him.
“Painful, isn’t it?” The man’s unbroken moans continue. “Your lungs are incinerated from the inside, which means you’re going to die. You have hours, maybe days, depending on how strong you are.” He pauses, and still all the guy can do is moan.
Damn, I’d feel sorry for him if I could, but honestly, I’m simply enamoured by Nero right now.
“Give me a name and I’ll give you a bullet. If not, I hope you enjoy your last few hours on this earth.”
“Abbiati,” he sobs, the word barely comprehensible.
“Thank you.” Nero removes his gun and shoots the guy in the head. The body goes limp and blood gushes down his face, falling straight into the drain. It reminds me of an animal carcass hanging in a slaughterhouse.
“Gio, Jackson, I think Bruce Abbiati needs a little visit.” Nero says. “Be sure to send a message.” He adds darkly. He tucks his gun back into the holster at his chest and approaches me. “Apologies for the delay.” He walks out of the room without a backwards glance.
Nero Verdi, for all of his refinement, is a monster; one with no boundaries. An adversary with no boundaries is the most formidable. To watch a man burn, to hear his screams and not even flinch…well, that puts him on my level. As if he wasn’t dangerous enough to me. He’s every bit as unfeeling and ruthless as I am. But he’s also smart and cunning, and intelligence is the most lethal weapon a man can possess.
10
Nero
The second I get in the car with her, I can feel her unease. She sits with her back ramrod straight and her fingers lingering over the knife holstered at her thigh.
“Why?” she asks.
Flashing her a brief glance as I rest my forearms against the steering wheel. “You’ll have to be more specific.”
“Why are you insisting that I stay with you?” She seems agitated by the idea.
I lean back in my seat and stare straight out the windshield at the darkness that lingers outside. “I have my reasons.”
“Well, sharing is caring.”
My lips twitch as I fight a smile. I look at her again and find her staring at me, her gaze intense. “I know enough about you to know that you’re very capable with some extremely powerful contacts. Right now, we’ve entered into something that mutually benefits us. I get what I want and you get what you want.”
“Yes, and I agreed to the exchange of services, did I not?” She cocks an eyebrow and I have to laugh.
“Come now, Una, don’t tell me that you’d look for a way out of it the second you got a chance.” She says nothing. “You might pay Arnaldo a visit, or try and find your sister yourself, not that you’d get far, but still.”
“I fail to see your point.”
Reaching out, I trail a finger down the sharp plane of her cheek, knowing full well that it makes her uncomfortable. I’ve never had women complain about my touch, never met a woman that didn’t beg me for it. They all want a taste of a bad boy, a walk on the wild side. If only they knew exactly what they were climbing into bed with. Una’s different. She’s no normal woman, and she definitely doesn’t see me as the fuckable bad boy. She sees me for exactly what I am and doesn’t even blink. Her skin is like satin beneath my fingertip as I trace a line to the corner of her lip, before gripping her jaw. “You stay with me, then you can’t run around plotting my demise in your spare time.”
A slow smile pulls at her lips, even as her eyes flash with something dangerous. “You really think you can hope to hold me against my will?”
I smirk back at her. “Oh, it won’t be against your will. Because the second you get away from me, I will give Nicholai the information I have on Anna.” Her breath hitches ever so slightly, her pulse throbbing erratically beneath my fingers on her neck. I allow a full-blown grin to make its way across my features. “And for all of your bravado, I don’t think you want that, do you, Morte?” I have her, hook, line and sinker. She’s got nowhere to run but straight to me. I will become her saviour and her nightmare. I’ll be whatever the fuck she needs me to be if she plays the role I need her for.
Her facial expression relaxes back into one of passive indifference and outright attitude. “Okay.”
“Okay?”
She pulls her face away from my grasp. “I asked for the why. You gave it. I can appreciate a shrewd manipulator, Verdi.”
Oh, we’re on a surname basis now. I snort as I press the start button and the car purrs to life.
“Of course, if you want me to do my job, then I’ll need my gear. Not to mention clothes. We need to make a stop.”
Putting the car in gear, I pull away from the Hamptons house. “Fine. Where do you need to go?”
The headlights glide across the metal roller doors of several storage units. Zeus and George sit bolt upright on the back seat, ears pricked as they stare out the windshield. I cut the engine and get out. We’re in a particularly run-down part of Brooklyn. A chain-link fence surrounds the lot with two security lights on either side of the gate casting an orange glow across the concrete walkway that separates the two rows of units. Una slams the car door and starts walking, her figure casting a long shadow ahead of her in the dim lighting. There’s a single security guard on the gate, that’s it. This place is about as secure as a fucking garden shed in the Bronx. What the hell is Una possibly using this place for? I scour the shadows, listening. All I can hear is the distant hum of traffic, interrupted by the occasional boat horn. I follow her, feeling the hard outline of my gun against my ribcage. My fingers itch to feel the weight of it in my hand
, but I refrain. Call me paranoid but I’ve experienced one too many dodgy deals and subsequent shootouts in locations just like this.
The sound of one of the metal doors rolling up punches through the night air. I catch up to Una as she steps inside the open unit and flicks on a light. The back wall is lined with several metal lockers, not dissimilar to the kind you’d find in an auto shop. She takes a set of keys and unlocks one. Opening drawers, she starts removing various weapons, pulling out the clips on the pistols and checking them before sliding them back in.
“Hand me one of those bags, will you?” She points to the left-hand wall, where a couple of empty black holdalls are hanging on the wall. Three zipped holdalls are on the floor beneath them. I take one of the bags and walk over to her, holding it open. She puts god knows how many different guns in there, and then she moves on to the next drawer. Grenades. The next, knives.
“You done?” I ask, raising my eyebrows. She glances sideways at me before zipping the bag. “You know I have guns. And we’re not taking down the pentagon.”
She glares at me. “I like my guns.”
“And the grenades?”
A small smile touches her lips. “Well, grenades are always handy.” I shake my head as I toss the bag over my shoulder. She picks up a long steel briefcase from the corner, followed by one of the zipped duffels against the wall.
“I need that, too.” She points at a black plastic case, which I pick up.
“Okay, let’s go.” She rolls the metal door back down, snapping the padlock back in place.
“You know, you should probably find somewhere more secure to store your shit.”
She walks past me. “Well, no one would store anything of value here, so no one bothers to break in.” She shrugs one shoulder. She says that now.
I pull into the parking garage beneath my building and glance at Una. She hasn’t spoken a word to me since we picked up her supplies, and honestly, I’m good with that. I really don’t care much for her emotional wellbeing past her ability to kill. I get out of the car and open the back door, letting the dogs out. They walk to heel as I make my way to the elevator, sparing only a brief glance over my shoulder just to check she is, in fact, following.
“I need my stuff.”
“I’ll have it brought up.” Her footsteps behind me are so quiet it’s almost unnerving. She takes ‘silent as the grave’ into an entirely new context.
The elevator doors open and I step in, watching as she slides in beside me, her eyes narrowed. She looks like a cornered animal, ready to bolt at any minute. I push the key into the panel and the doors close before we start moving. She lingers slightly behind me, ever the strategist. I catch her blurred reflection in the brass doors, and even with that limited view I can see the tension in her shoulders. She’s uncomfortable and fight ready. George abandons me to sit beside her. Apparently, he’s making his loyalties clear.
I inspect the cuff of my jacket, adjusting the edge of my shirt. “I’m not about to jump you, Una,” I say casually.
“You’d be stupid to,” she replies, her voice tight.
Well, isn’t this going to be fun? Gio thinks I’m crazy bringing her here. He wanted me to leave her at the house, but I know there’s no way she’d stay there. Well…she might, but not without slaughtering every man there who sees her face before we part ways. The tension in this small metal box becomes stifling, until I’m ready to either pry the damn doors open or point a fucking gun at her head and tell her to stop with her shit. Luckily for both of us, the low ping rings out before the doors glide open. The dogs trot ahead, disappearing into the kitchen where Margo, my housekeeper will have left them food.
“The elevator only operates with a key, and the emergency exit has sensors and alarm systems on the door. So, if you run, I’ll know.” I look at her, making sure she sees how deadly fucking serious I am. Honestly, I have no idea how to handle someone like her. I deal with men for whom threats and leverage will undoubtedly work. She’s too calm, too accepting. It makes me suspicious. I’ve never had to supress someone of her skill, nor with her contacts. I’m pretty sure she could call in a favour from any big gun she likes, even Arnaldo. After all, I’m off the grid here, working on my own, and I have no doubt that she knows that. I’m just hoping that her sister is enough. True, she might be able to find Anna on her own, but I’ve had guys buried in the cartels for years. I’m her best bet. She steps away from me, moving to the floor-to-ceiling windows that surround the entire apartment, like a literal glass wall, imprisoning her here, high above New York.
“Your room is this way.” I walk away without waiting for her response, ascending the stairs that lead to the second floor. The balcony style railing runs along the length of the apartment, overlooking the open-plan living space below. Up here, there are three bedrooms. My step falters at the first one, the one furthest from mine, the one I had intended to put her in, but for some reason I keep walking, stopping at the one next to mine. I push the door open and hold my arm out in a sweeping gesture. The room is sparse, with only a large bed in the middle of the room, covered in black sheets.
“You should have everything you need, but if not then tell me and Margo will get it.”
“Margo?” Suspicion laces her voice.
“My housekeeper. I don’t keep girlfriends.”
She smirks. “You say that as though they’re pets. Butterflies in a jar.” She walks a few steps away and spins on her heel to face me. “You strike me as the sort to pluck the wings off pretty butterflies, Nero.”
Una Ivanov. There’s something about her that constantly taunts, teases and dares. I move further into the room, slowly closing the gap between us until I’m close enough to see her indigo eyes in the darkness. The easiest way to intimidate someone is to get in their personal space. It’s a habit when trying to force someone to back down, but with Una, I find it has the opposite effect. She rises to the threat, making everything in me sit up and take note. I want to be indifferent to her, I need to be, and yet, everything she does captures my attention. How can it not? I’ve never met a woman like her, and I know I never will. There is no one like her. She’s the best, the kiss of death herself. My eyes trace the outline of her full lips, and I suddenly remember exactly how they feel against mine, the lash of her tongue, the violent scrape of her teeth…
“Don’t worry, I’ll leave your wings well alone.”
She smirks and tilts her head back to look at me. “You mistake me for something pretty and fragile, but I assure you, any wings I had were plucked a very long time ago,” she says it casually, but I catch the briefest flash of sadness in her eyes. She doesn’t say it for pity though; she says it because she hates to be seen as anything pretty and delicate. I shouldn’t give a shit, but she’s like a puzzle that I can’t resist wasting my fucking time on.
“Fine then, be an ugly caterpillar.” She snorts and the briefest smile flashes over her lips, sinking a dimple into her porcelain cheek. A butterfly indeed, although her wings are made of steel and her touch may very well kill. Forcing myself to move away from her, I step out of the doorway.
“Nero.” I halt when I hear her voice. “Uh…” she stammers over her words and it has me turning to face her. “You might hear things tonight. Don’t come in here.” Before I can respond, she slams the door shut.
11
Una
“You will learn your place, Una. You are nothing and no one, an unwanted orphan. Say it!” The matron shouts in my face, spit flying from those thin, cruel lips. A cigarette hangs between her fingers and the smell of tobacco wafts around the room. Defiantly, I hold her stare, refusing to break, refusing to acknowledge what she wants from me. The rough wood of the chair bites against my bare thighs, exposed by the sundress I’m wearing. The leather belts that secure my wrists to the arms of the chair are worn, but they still chafe against my skin, leaving my wrists raw. The matron likes to do this, to make sure the children here are well behaved and easy. I’m not. I know what they do wi
th us, what they have planned. I refuse to accept this fate, and above all, I refuse to accept it for my sister.
“Fine. Remember you deserve this,” she growls, before taking the cigarette and stamping it into my shoulder.
It hurts, it really hurts. And then that smell, burnt flesh and melting skin. It’s the first time I’ve smelt it, but it won’t be the last.
The scene then shifts, the matron’s face blurs and morphs until I’m staring at Erik. Leather restraints give way to rough hands, and the wooden chair becomes a concrete floor. I know what happens here, and already my breathing is picking up, my heart thrumming so fast I can barely stop myself from having a full-blown panic attack. I thrash against the restraining hands but all it earns me is a swift slap across my cheek. My head reels back and a sting erupts across my skin.
Erik’s body lands on top of me, his hot breath blowing over my cheek. “I’m going to break you,” he hisses.
It’s at this exact moment that the part of me that still had a scrap of faith in humanity shatters. Everything becomes a blur of torn clothing and adrenaline. I fight, lashing out at anything within reach. Somewhere in the chaos I become removed, and instead of experiencing it myself, I become a bystander, and the girl being held down becomes Anna. Only she doesn’t fight, and Nicholai never arrives to save her. Tears track down my face, and I scream as I try to get to her, but I can’t. It’s as though my feet are set in concrete and all I can do is watch as my little sister shuts down and becomes nothing more than a fractured vessel in front of my eyes, her innocence stolen by monsters who have no right to take it.
Gasping awake, I drag in lungfuls of air. Tears track down my temples, while the telltale ache in my throat tells me I’ve been screaming. It takes me a second to remember where I am. I can’t remember the last time I stayed in the same place for more than a week or two, and the constant travelling never ceases to disorientate me. Nightmares have plagued me for years. Well, they’re not nightmares so much as memories. My entire childhood was one long nightmare, so I have plenty of material. This is new though. This is the first time Anna has become the focus of my torment. That wasn’t a memory. I didn’t break, but Anna would break. The thought is enough to make my blood run cold, and a tiny voice in the back of my mind begs me to hope, to hope that maybe that was not her fate. I should know better. There is no room in this world for hope, only cold reality.